"Refrain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tall, handsome withal, But your pride owergangs your wit; If ye do not your ways refrain, In ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... again, and wondered a moment at the confession, till he understood by intuition that the matter and its consequences were so deeply preying upon the man's mind that he could not refrain from giving vent to ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... Antony's death caused a perceptible reaction in popular feeling. The young man, after a hard struggle with adverse fate, had paid the last debt, and the great debt. Good men refrain from judging those who have gone to God's tribunal. Even his largest creditors evinced a disposition to take, with consideration, their claim, as the estate could pay it; and some willingness to allow at last, "thet Miss Hallam hed done ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... muffled in the Schwarzwald and along the shores of the North Sea, and up and down the Danube and the Rhine, yet conveyed a whispered message which may presently break into song; the glad song of freedom with it glorious refrain: "The Romanoffs gone! Perdition having reached the Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs, all ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... to refrain from telling all this, and from making a little innocent fun out of the superexcellencies of these schools; but the total result on my mind was very greatly in their favor. And indeed the testimony came in both ways. Not only ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... very ugly word about Homer," said Miss Tredgold. "Sometimes I wish that I were a man in order that I might swear hard at you, Henry Dale. As I am a woman I must refrain. Do you know that your daughter Pauline, your daughter Briar, your daughter Patty, and your extraordinary daughter Penelope are all of them about as naughty children as they can be. Indeed, in the case of Pauline I consider her worse than naughty. What ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... for exhibition before the footlights; and of the feverish whirl of life and the bedazzlement of popularity and fashionable petting; and somehow or other the closing lines of Mrs. Browning's poem would come ever and anon into his head as a sort of unceasing refrain: ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... the motives of the French Emperor, and however little most men may be disposed to believe in his generosity, it is impossible to refrain from admiring the promptness and skill with which he has acted, or to deny to him the merit of courage in daring to pronounce so decidedly against the Austrians at a time when he could not have reasonably reckoned upon a single ally beyond the limits of Italy, when England, under Tory ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... inevitable that every British subject who is tried and found guilty of having speared his enemy shall be hanged without benefit of clergy, the colonists out of sheer humanity and pity for the ignorance of the culprit, refrain from bringing him to trial and punishment — a proceeding which, by the way, would cost the colony some fifteen or twenty pounds — and thus he goes on in his errors, unreproved by the wisdom or the piety of the whites. Sometimes, however, ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... and to suffer anything for their faith, and a faith which breeds heroes is better than an unbelief which leaves nothing worth being a hero for. Only let us be fair, and not defend the creed of Mohammed because it nurtured brave men and enlightened scholars, or refrain from condemning polygamy in our admiration of the indomitable spirit and perseverance of the Pilgrim Fathers of Mormonism, or justify an inhuman belief, or a cruel or foolish superstition, because it was once held or acquiesced in by men whose nobility of character ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... nothing to you openly, of course; but open, honest, daylight methods are not regarded here with very much respect just at present, and you might perhaps mysteriously disappear. Oh, no, it would never do for you to attempt to interfere, Jack! On the contrary, you must most studiously refrain from anything and everything that would be in the least likely to breed ill blood between you and the Spaniards, because—who knows?— we may need your help ere long. And that you could only effectively give by maintaining good relations with the ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... which they came and to which they must return—that she could have wept in anguish, cursing God for the wickedness of man which lay so heavy on creation. The gaunt troopers riding at ease with swinging legs and swaying stirrups—and singing now a refrain from Ronsard, and now one of those verses of Marot's psalms which all the world had sung three decades before—wore their most lamb-like aspect. Behind them Madame St. Lo chattered to Suzanne of a riding ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and stood there in silence. The great broad shoulders began to shake under that soft touch. There was no sound uttered for long, then, brokenly, his one refrain: "Oh, Belle!" ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... interpreted by him as a memory of a marriage with some other woman unknown, who might, for anything he knew, be still living; that his inference as to the bearing of this on his own conduct was that he should refrain, at any cost to himself, from claiming, so to speak, his own identity; should accept the personality chance had forced upon him for her sake; should even forego the treasure of her sympathy, more precious far to him than the heavy ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... thousand diamonds into the light. Scarcely anything stirred through all the stretch; at some runnel along its nearer margin, where upon one side the more broken swamp recommenced, a rosy flamingo stood and fished, and, still remoter, the melancholy note of a bird tolled its refrain, answered by an echoing voice from some yet inner depth of forest far away. Save for this, the silence was as intense as the vastness and color of the scene, till it opened and resolved itself into one broad insect hum. The children took ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... charge you, men, carry not off that poor lad on to the cruel salt sea if he is unwilling to go; the salt, salt sea, the cruel salt sea," and she burst out in her usual refrain. ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... was unbounded. The father smiled quietly, and we the pioneers could scarcely refrain our pride and pleasure. But there was more to be seen. Crossing the great hall once more, we entered a large and beautiful room overlooking the main entrance. This had other furniture besides its handsome ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... above the warring of the years, Over their stretch of toils and pains and fears, Comes the well-loved refrain, That ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... to the place beside him. It had not gone so far as this in the judge's experience of a neurotic invalid without his learning to ask her no questions about herself. He had always a hard task in refraining, but he had grown able to refrain, and now he merely looked unobtrusively glad to see her, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... reasons I recommend to Congress to pass a law authorizing the President, under such conditions as they may deem expedient, to employ a sufficient military force to enter Mexico for the purpose of obtaining indemnity for the past and security for the future. I purposely refrain from any suggestion as to whether this force shall consist of regular troops or volunteers, or both. This question may be most appropriately left to the decision of Congress. I would merely observe that should volunteers be selected such a force could be easily raised in this country among ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... simple air with a supprest voice, scarce audibly in her remote chamber. Edward was moved by it, and so strongly, that he could not help being surprised at his extreme susceptibility. Before he fell asleep, his melancholy had so increast, that he could hardly refrain from shedding tears. ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... Warbler is sweet and pleasing. It begins to sing from its first appearance in May and continues to repeat its brief refrain at intervals almost until its departure in August and September. At first it is a monotonous ditty, says Nuttall, uttered in a strong but shrill and filing tone. These notes, as the season advances, become ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... be long, they feel, before the Negro laborers of the South will be firmly in the grasp of a new form of slavery. They are also alarmed at the clamor of leading newspapers for a vagrancy law which will be invoked in times when the Negroes refrain from labor in the hope of advancing their pay. The presence in our ranks of the labor element representing the Negro masses will give striking evidence of the effect things are having upon all classes ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... his thinking she had betrayed her trust, and he could not be got by his daughter to say that he would forgive her. He certainly could not be got to say that he would apologise for the accusation he had made. It was nothing less that his daughter asked; and he could hardly refrain himself from anger when she asked it. "There should not have been a moment," he said, "before she came to me and told me all." Poor Lady Mary's position was certainly uncomfortable enough. The great sin,—the sin which was so great that to have known it for a day without ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... their own religion was largely a matter of fetishes, with fluctuating restrictions as to what might or might not be done on Sundays, but they found Larry's a more stimulating subject. It was impossible for them to refrain from speculations as to what Larry said when he went to confession; equally impossible not to propose to the prospective penitent an assortment of sins to be avowed at his next shriving, even though the suggestions seldom failed to provoke conflict of the intensity ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... all aroused by a letter from Sir Edmund. It informed her that he was now of age; that his affection remained unalterable; that he was newly arrived from abroad; and that, notwithstanding the death-blow she had given to his hopes, he could not refrain, on returning to his native land, from assuring her that he was resolved never to pay his addresses to any other woman. He concluded by declaring his intent on of presenting himself at once to Sir Duncan, and soliciting his permission to claim her hand: when all scruples relating to Lady ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... not to be had: such as were at the War Department were hardly accessible. Reports had been duly made by all superior officers engaged in and surviving this campaign, excepting only the general in command; but, strange to say, not only did Gen. Hooker refrain from making a report, but he retained in his personal possession many of the records of the Army of the Potomac covering the period of his command, and it is only since his death that these records ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... round about that heard this answer, could not refrain from giving three cheers in admiration of the bravery of the laddie's spirit; and the cheering attracting the attention of the officers, one of them came forward to us, to inquire into its cause; and, on its being ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... so little faith to-day, that I hardly doubt that there is chiming in the ears of many in this audience the refrain:—"This is all sentiment and doesn't help us to deal with hard facts." We ought, however, to hesitate, I think, before consigning this view to the babies' limbs. It may be after all that the Sermon on the Mount was ...
— A Comparative Study of the Negro Problem - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 4 • Charles C. Cook
... what outrage? I would show my contempt and preserve my dignity by submitting without a struggle—I despised this odious plot. At last there were voices, footsteps; I found it very hard to carry out my resolution and refrain from stifled cries and kicks. I was lifted up and carried, like a corpse, with many stumbles, by men who sometimes growled as they hastened along. From time to time somebody murmured, "Take care." Then ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... trepanning. Oh, that was so beautiful! You must let me tell you about that. You see, this man was a sailor, and he fell from the top-gallantmast, and struck—" But here Rose's hand was laid resolutely over his mouth, and he was told that if he could not refrain from surgical anecdotes, he would be sent ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... a pretty fool, a pretty fool!" the refrain sang itself unceasingly in my ears. I was disgusted with the episode, more disgusted yet with my own role. Why was I lying, why making myself by my present silence as well as by my former density the flagrant confederate of a ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... in the morning Will had sought out Morva as she sat on her milking-stool, leaning her head on Daisy's flank, and milking her to the old refrain: ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... There are people who refrain from having their wills drawn on the score that they would be likely to die if they did. While I have no sympathy with this superstition, I must confess that a formal celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of your wedding-day has always ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... one corner a stout gentleman in a thin coat, with a scarlet neck showing above his wilted collar, held a half-dozen listeners with his eyes, while he plied them with emphatic sentences in which the name of Crutchfield sounded like a refrain. Moving from group to group, portly, unctuous, insinuating, a man with an oily voice was doing battle in ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... the lad's face at the words, as the blossom fades 'neath the blighting touch of frost. What he said was so undutiful from a nephew touching his uncle—particularly when that uncle is a prelate—that I refrain from penning it. ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... better a few weeks later. Time and again orders for embarkation were received, only to be revoked upon rumors of ghostly warships reported off some distant portion of the coast. Spain was playing her old game of manana at the expense of the Americans, and inducing her powerful enemy to refrain from striking a blow by means of terrifying rumors skilfully circulated through the so-called "yellow journals" of the great American cities, which readily published any falsehood that provided a sensation. At length, however, the last bogie appeared to be laid, ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... long lapse of years, I can not refrain from a feeling of astonishment, to think how little remembrance I possess of the occurrences of that day—one of the most memorable that ever dawned for France—the eventful 29th of July, that closed the reign of terror by the death of the tyrant! It is true that all Paris was astir ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... hardly refrain from manifesting her displeasure, and bluntly asked what time Lady Temple was ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Spectator 2.] but the Spectator does not care for them as Chaucer cares for the battlefields of his Knight. 'One might ... recount' many tales touching on many points in our speculations, and no child and no Elizabethan would refrain from doing so, but the Spectator will not 'go out of the occurrences of common life, but assert it as a general observation.' [Footnote: Spectator 107] He is in perfect harmony with his age, too, in the intensely ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... wondered on first acquaintance with this man, for how long he would be able to refrain from striking him in the face. He was afraid that it would not, at this juncture, be a wise thing to do. The two girls in the house were much on his mind; perhaps a presentiment of something of this sort had made ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... this matter by George Sand is so characteristic of her that, lengthy as it is, I cannot refrain from giving ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... all corrupt times by great administrators, whether of States, or factories, or railroads. "A number of flies had settled on a soldier's wound, and a compassionate passer-by was about to scare them away. The sufferer begged him to refrain. 'These flies,' he said, 'have nearly sucked their full, and are beginning to be tolerable; if you drive them away, they will be immediately succeeded by fresh-comers with keener appetites.' " The ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... therefore no man's real adhesion to the Christian creed can be secured by showing him how human happiness would suffer by its extinction. This argument, if it had any weight at all, would only induce persons either to pretend to be Christians when they were not, or to refrain from assailing Christianity, or to avoid all inquiries which might possibly lead to sceptical conclusions. It is therefore, perhaps, a good argument to address to believers, because it may induce them to suppress doubts ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... at frequent intervals, while they are scratching among the leaves for their food they will stop and utter their familiar "tow-hee" or "che-wink" and then again will mount to the summit of a tree or bush and sing their sweet refrain for a ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... refrain. Sometimes expressed, more often not. ENGLAND in the melting pot—what was going to happen? Unconsciously Vane's eyes rested on the figure of the old butler standing at the end of the room. There was ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... moment or two, stood watching the slim figure wind its way through the mass of vehicles to the opposite corner; then he pursued his own course down Fifth Avenue, measuring his steps to the rhythmic refrain: "It's too easy—it's too easy—it's ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... In reading your very friendly and acceptable letter, which came to hand by the last mail, I was, as you may well suppose, not less delighted than surprized to meet the plain American words, "my wife." A wife! Well, my dear Marquis, I can hardly refrain from smiling to find you are caught at last. I saw by the eulogium you often made on the happiness of domestic life in America, that you had swallowed the bait, and that you would as surely be taken, one day ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... a dozen others during the summer, indicated that he would be equal to the work that was to fall to him when in a few weeks he should succeed Wilson. But to go on down the scale of rank, describing the officers who commanded in the Army of the Shenandoah, would carry me beyond all limit, so I refrain from the digression with regret that I cannot pay to each his ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan
... poems, allegories, ethical reflections, and historical reminiscences. For it, the Bible was not only the supreme law, from whose behests there was no appeal, but also "a golden nail upon which" the Haggada "hung its gorgeous tapestries," so that the Bible word was the introduction, refrain, text, and subject of the poetical glosses of the Talmud. It was the province of the Halacha to build, upon the foundation of biblical law, a legal superstructure capable of resisting the ravages of time, and, unmindful of contemporaneous distress and ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... know it would have been used, and we can guess what the result would have been; for nothing is easier, alas! than to spur on a democracy with such cries as these to the exercise of the one function it should refrain from—interference with another democracy, be it in Ireland or anywhere else. As it was, a merciful veil fell over Canada; Lord Elgin's action in 1849 passed with little notice, and a mood of weary indifference to colonial affairs, for which, in default of any Imperial idealism, we cannot be ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... to listen. The refrain of "Work performed," in his own brain, was drowning the other's clatter. The refrain maddened him, and he tried ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... tears trickling down his face, wasn't even bothering to squeeze the coal-dealer's knee any longer. All these drunk revelers were as soft-hearted as lambs. Wasn't the wine almost coming out of their eyes? When the refrain began again, they all let themselves go, blubbering ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... of any given spot of the earth's surface, from sea to land and from land to sea, as an established fact, we cannot refrain from asking ourselves how these changes have occurred. And when we have explained them—as they must be explained—by the alternate slow movements of elevation and depression which have affected the ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... people, who, when enraged, have no regard even for their sovereign. It would have been more agreeable to me, if my love and attentions had engaged you; but I hope time will inspire your heart with those sentiments, that will be conducive to my felicity, and your repose.' I could not refrain from tears at this discourse of the Sultan:—-the choice appeared terrible to me; 'Is it possible, my lord!' replied I, 'that among the number of beauties who would be proud of the honour you offer me, you cannot find one more worthy than myself? ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown
... into the depths of the temple. From room to room he went, until he came to one at which a rude, barred door still stood, and as he put his shoulder against it to push it in, again the shriek of warning rang out almost beside him. It was evident that he was being warned to refrain from desecrating this particular room. Or could it be that within lay the ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Villiers, Chief Justice of Cape Colony, came to Pretoria to endeavour to avert the crisis. Mr. Krueger promised to refrain from enforcing Law I. of 1897, and to introduce a new law. The judges resumed ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown not by the weak but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain from wronging others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace; but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right, and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts rightly and justly ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... that health is dependent on regimen and diet, more than on any other cause. There are things so decidedly injurious, and so well known to be so, as to require no admonition; the instincts of nature will teach us to refrain; and generally speaking, the best rule for our practice is to observe by experience, what it is that hurts or does us good, and what our stomachs are best able to digest. We must at the same time keep our judgment unbiassed, and not suffer ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... she lay curled up by the stove under Ward's wolf-skin coat, this seemed the only possible way out: To tell Seabeck and trust to his kindness and generosity to refrain from pushing the case. To have Charlie Fox give back what he had stolen or pay for it—anything that would satisfy Seabeck's sense of justice—and let him start honestly. She had thought that Seabeck would be merciful, if she told him in the right way; but ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... country;—Seville has restored it to life more glorious than ever; and those fields, which for so many years have seen no steel but that of the plough-share, are going amid the splendour of arms to prove the new cradle of their adored country.'—'I could not,' he adds, 'refrain from tears of joy on viewing the city in which I first drew breath—and to see it in a situation ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... rain beating down upon her, began singing, her fine contralto voice rising above the rattle of the rain on the roof and going on uninterrupted by the crash of the thunder. She sang of a lover riding through the storm to his mistress. One refrain ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... stranger. Not long afterwards he saw the Cocks fighting together, and not separating before one had well beaten the other. He then said to himself: "I shall no longer distress myself at being struck at by these Game-cocks, when I see that they cannot even refrain from quarreling with ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... landing, and accompanied him, amidst the mingled din of shouts, wild music, and discharges of artillery, to the house that had been prepared for him. "I cannot easily describe," says Count Gamba, "the emotions which such a scene excited. I could scarcely refrain from tears." ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... a thrill in his voice; and again the palms of his hands were making that refrain of delight. "But I have told my story," he resumed. "Now may I ask you a question? Why ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... has any claim upon your preference," if persecution and injustice suffered in the cause of philanthropy and truth may commend a young man to William Godwin's regard, he is not unworthy of this honour. We who have learned to know the flawless purity of Shelley's aspirations, can refrain from smiling at the big generalities of this epistle. Words which to men made callous by long contact with the world, ring false and wake suspicion, were for Shelley but the natural expression of his most abiding mood. Yet Godwin may ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... describe the seemingly electrical influences which were working upon the mind of Reuben, as he caught, ever and again, breaking through the torrent of the speaker's language, the tender, appealing refrain, "My son, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... Kent;" Mrs. Sylvester enjoyed nothing so much as talking to a good looking man, especially in the presence of her husband, and she could not refrain from a triumphant look at him as she went on with her remarks. "There was a female sitting on the bench next to me in Court; in fact, she and I were the only women on that side, and I kinder noticed her on that account, and then I saw she was ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... ability and judgment with which the present Governor-General has applied the forces of the empire to retrieve our honour and reputation in the East—while unable to point to a single practical measure as either improperly taken, or improperly omitted by him, the Whigs could not refrain, on some pretext or other, from marring the general joy by the discordant hissings of an impotent envy. Experiencing in an unparalleled degree both the indulgence of a generous nation, who are willing to forget the past ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... that he might not be appealed to—might forever be left in ignorance of this her latest act of insubordination. She would, it was true, have to make a report to him of the day's conduct, but she could refrain from telling the whole story; could smooth the matter over so that he would not understand how extremely impertinent and ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... or indiscreet notoriety at this particular time, I refrain from inquiry. Much as antecedents and purposes of these people interest me it will not be wise to risk vocal curiosity. I feel not only the restraints of good breeding, but of the situation. The Lanier exposures may be not even ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... adapted to the uneven ground as to be on top of the prison-wail. Panting with excitement, the convict Charlton stopped at the top of this flight of steps while the guard gave an alarm, and the door was opened from the office side. Albert could not refrain from looking back over the prison-yard; he saw every familiar object again, he passed through the door, and stood face to face with the firm and kindly Warden Proctor. He saw Lurton standing by the warden, he was painfully alive to everything; the clerks had ceased ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... came to after one of his fists had bumped me head he was urgin' his pony to what it didn't want. The river was roarin' below somewhere an' it was black as the grave's insides. It was way up there that in a minute's lull in the hostilities, I caught the faint refrain: ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... and of the novel, the necessity for leaving out is more acute in the one than in the other. The adjective "photographic" is as absurd applied to the novel as to the play. And, in the second place, other factors being equal, it is less exhausting, and it requires less skill, to refrain from doing than to do. To know when to refrain from doing may be hard, but positively to do is even harder. Sometimes, listening to partisans of the drama, I have been moved to suggest that, if the art of omission is so wondrously difficult, a dramatist who practised ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... aloud, and he cried out likewise, for our fright was mutual. At length, by God's providence, M. de Nangay, captain of the guard, came into the bed-chamber, and, seeing me thus surrounded, though he could not help pitying me, he was scarcely able to refrain from laughter. However, he reprimanded the archers very severely for their indiscretion, and drove them out of the chamber. At my request he granted the poor gentleman his life, and I had him put to bed in my ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... child. Denis Harlenden's heart turned to water at the sight of it, and the blood thrummed in his veins with the ache to crush her to his breast and keep her there against the world and against herself, spite of all the unfathomed things in her which estranged him. But he was strong enough to refrain from even touching her hands. Only his voice he could not stay ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... that tatu can ever be of much value in clearing up racial problems, seeing how much evidence there is of interchange of designs and rejection of indigenous designs in favour of something newer; consequently we refrain from drawing up another scheme of classification of tatu in Borneo; at best it would be little more than a re-enumeration of the forms that we have already described ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... features of slavery have been familiar. If the South goes to war for slavery, slavery is doomed in this country. To say so is like opposing one drop to a roaring torrent. This is a good time to follow St. Paul's advice that women should refrain from speaking, but they are speaking more than usual and forcing others to speak against ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... judgment. But if you are so stupidly insensible of her charms as to deprive your tongue and eyes of every expression of admiration, and not only to be silent respecting her, but devote them to an absent object, she cannot receive a higher insult; nor would she, if not restrained by politeness, refrain ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... advice he gave me was this: "Refer everything that you do to God; strive to offer Him all the good you find in yourself, acknowledging that this comes from God, and thank Him for it." The advice given to me on this occasion was so consoling to me that I could not refrain from tears. St. Ignatius then related to me that for two years he had struggled against vain glory; so much so, indeed, that when he was about to embark for Jerusalem at Barcelona he did not dare to tell any one where ...
— The Autobiography of St. Ignatius • Saint Ignatius Loyola
... been hardly able to refrain from breaking in, answered fast. "What have I got to say?" he roared. "I say I know what I'm talking about. I say she's ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... add an apology for what he had said earlier in the day, but his newly acquired importance made him refrain from anything so compromising. ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... refrain from concentrating our attention on particular countries and embrace the general movement of civilization in the matter of divorce during recent times, there cannot be the slightest doubt as to the direction of that movement. England was a pioneer in the movement half a century ago, and to-day ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... and twelve figures in this celebrated cloth, if one includes birds, beasts, boats, et cetera, with the men; and amidst all this elongated crowd is but one woman. Queen Matilda, left at home for months, immured with her ladies, probably had quite enough of women to refrain easily from portraying them. Needless to say, this one embroidered lady interests ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... refrain from communication with the police, so as not to draw attention to the peculiar circumstances that have taken place in this house, and I agreed somewhat unwillingly, knowing Mr Capel's feelings as to what ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... daily journal considers that he buys the right to abuse it, nay incurs the manly duty of abusing it. Every editor knows that the highest praise he can expect is silence. If his readers are pleased with his remarks, they nobly refrain from comment. But if they disagree with one jot or tittle of his high-speed dissertations, he must be prepared to have quarts of ink ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... their being eaten in substance, when the morbid effects they produce too often prove them worthy of the appellations Seneca gave them, "voluptuous poison," "lethal luxury," &c.; and we caution those who cannot refrain from indulging their palate with the seducing relish of this deceitful fungus, to masticate ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... looked instinctively at the carpet. Remarkably enough, the ring had rolled to the very point where he stood. He saw the rubies touching the tip of his boot. Such is the force of habit that he could not refrain from stooping, with an absurd little thrill of pleasure at being the one to find what others were looking for, and, picking the ring up, he presented it, with a bow that was courtly in the extreme, to Cassandra. Whether the making of a bow released automatically feelings ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... powerful minds are not always the best acquainted with their own feelings. Had Fanshawe, moreover, acknowledged to himself the possibility of gaining Ellen's affections, his generosity would have induced him to refrain from her society before it was too late. He had read her character with accuracy, and had seen how fit she was to love, and to be loved, by a man who could find his happiness in the common occupations of the world; and Fanshawe never deceived himself so far as to suppose that this ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... refrain in his heart as he inserted a fresh sheet of paper behind the roller and resumed ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... that if at that moment Cecil Rhodes had become the head of the Cabinet not one voice, even among the most fanatic of the Afrikander Bond, would have objected. Those most averse to such a possibility were Rhodes' own supporters, a small group of men whose names I shall refrain from mentioning. ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... was he over this circumstance that he could not refrain from venting his ill humor on somebody, and his valet being unavailable at the time, he ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... looking at me. My agitation during this interval was excessive; and although I strictly obeyed my friend's injunctions, notwithstanding that I knew not to what they were to lead, I could not suppress the dreadful feelings by which I was distracted. I, however, did all I could to refrain from exhibiting any outward sign ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... of the seventeenth century with this American Separatist of the nineteenth, we should be in still greater danger of misleading. Certainly there were those among the Separatists from the Church of England who, in the violence of their alienation and the bitterness of their sufferings, did not refrain from sour and acrid censoriousness toward the men who were nearest them in religious conviction and pursuing like ends by another course. One does not read far in the history of New England without encountering reformers of this extreme type. But not such ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... little more than a child he heard a woman one Guy Fawkes's Day sing, in the street a strange song whose burden was "Following the Queen of the Gypsies, O!" The singular refrain haunted his memory for many years, and out of it was ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... stepped before King Augeas and without telling him anything of the demands of Eurystheus, pledged himself to the task, the latter measured the noble form in the lion-skin and could hardly refrain from laughing when he thought of so worthy a warrior undertaking so menial a work. But he said to himself: "Necessity has driven many a brave man; perhaps this one wishes to enrich himself through me. That ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... Such is the refrain of the nineteenth century pessimist. But, as before, the sprouting of new thought and belief is visible to the attentive eye all over the surface of the sordid field of a decaying civilization. The time has come when ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... collecting stores and marshalling the militia, to put the island in a state of defence. The Spanish fleet never appeared, however, and life on the island soon subsided into its customary channels.[344] Sir Thomas Lynch, meanwhile, was all the more careful to observe the peace with Spain and yet refrain from alienating the more troublesome elements of the population. It had been decided in England that Morgan, too, like Modyford, was to be sacrificed, formally at least, to the remonstrances of the Spanish Government; yet Lynch, because Morgan himself was ill, and ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... themselves that it has been pardoned; to live joyfully as long as they can, for men are for the most part worn out by care; never to take a wife from a witless stock or one tainted with hereditary disease; to refrain from deliberating when the mind is disturbed; to learn how to be worsted and suffer loss; and to trust a school-master to teach children, but not to feed them. One of the dicta is a gem of quaint wisdom. "Before you begin ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... spasmodic and disjointed eloquence. In conclusion, he said: "In his youth man believes himself born to roll; the day comes when he experiences the necessity of being seated. I am seated; my seat is a little hard, but when I am tempted to murmur, I think of my mother and refrain." ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... off, Billy," cried Jemmy Ducks, finishing with a flourish on his fiddle, and a refrain of the air. I don't think we shall meet him and ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... risen and followed him that he might talk with him apart. Gold-mane greeted him kindly, though, sooth to say, he was but half content to see him; since he doubted, what was verily the case, that his foster-father would give him many words, counselling him to refrain from going to the wood, and this was loathsome to him; ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... walked and LeRoy talked, voicing the thoughts that came into his mind. I listened in silence. His mind struck upon the refrain voiced by the man in the mountains. "I would like to be a dead dry thing," he muttered looking at the leaves scattered over the grass. "I would like to be a leaf blown away by the wind." He looked up and his eyes turned to where among the trees we could see the lake in the distance. ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... learned that these Crees considered Mr. Back and myself to be war chiefs possessing great power and that they expected we should make some address to them I desired them to be kind to the traders, to be industrious in procuring them provision and furs, and to refrain from stealing their stores and horses; and I assured them that if I heard of their continuing to behave kindly I would mention their good conduct in the strongest terms to their Great Father across the sea (by which appellation they ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... for opium and chloral in those subjugated, is of a strength of which normal persons can have no conception. 'Were a keg of rum in one corner of the room, and were a cannon constantly discharging balls between me and it, I could not refrain from passing before that cannon in order to get that rum. If a bottle of brandy stood on one hand, and the pit of hell yawned on the other, and I were convinced I should be pushed in as surely as I took one glass, I could not refrain.' Such statements ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... lanterns, while Legrand contented himself with the scarabaeus, which he carried attached to the end of a bit of whip-cord; twirling it to and fro, with the air of a conjuror, as he went. When I observed this last, plain evidence of my friend's aberration of mind, I could scarcely refrain from tears. I thought it best, however, to humor his fancy, at least for the present, or until I could adopt some more energetic measures with a chance of success. In the meantime I endeavored, but all in vain, to sound him in regard to the object of ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... by whistling softly, musically, impudently. And the air which Barbee selected at this juncture, though not drawn from the classics, served its purpose adequately; the song was a favorite in the range-lands, the refrain simple, profane, and sincere. Translated into ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... may be, so long as her Majesty continues to tender her mediation, partial or general, so long it appears to me prudent for us to refrain from making any open advances. For however strongly convinced her Majesty may be, that our independence is now laid on a foundation, which Britain can never destroy or shake, however clearly she may see that the freedom of the commerce and ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various |
